A federal appellate court has rejected Notre Dame’s lawsuit against the federal health insurance law provisions that require it to cover contraception in its employee health insurance policies.

“It’s fundamentally a violation of the First Amendment guaranteeing religious liberty,” Sasse tells Nebraska Radio Network.

Sasse rejects arguments that Notre Dame is using religious liberty as an excuse not to provide contraception coverage to its employees.

“When people at an institution like Notre Dame self-conscientiously believe that they are morally opposed and have always been clear about their moral objections to birth control and

abortifacients and they’re now being forced to subsidize the provision of that by a federal law in a private institution and somehow that’s a made-up excuse? People who say that know none of their history.”

On another issues, Sasse says he disagrees with military cuts proposed by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Sasse says he’s having a hard time understanding Hagel’s logic.

“Sen. Hagel has served Nebraska for a long time, but I don’t know what he’s doing as he carries the Obama Administration’s water and claims that somehow defense spending is a secondary priority of the U.S. government and there are all these other things crowding out defense spending in the budget and he’s pretending that’s right. I don’t understand it.”

Sasse he agrees with the concept that America needs a smarter military. But, Sasse says the proposed cuts will undermine the goal of being able to fight a full-scale, two-front war.